“Let me go, Marcelino, let me go, oh God … I can't stand it!”

Without replying or ceasing his kisses, Marcelino deflowered Santa in the enchanting hideaway where the two had ensconced themselves. And Santa, who totally adored him, stifled the cries that normally accompany the loss of virginity. Sighing spasmodically as the tears rolled down her cheeks, she continued to kiss the man who had sacrificed her virtue. In idolizing feminine renunciation, in sovereign, primitive holocaust, in loving payment for what he had made her suffer, she gave him everything. She vibrated with him, submerged herself together with him in an unknown ocean of unparalleled delight, a sensation comparable only to a perfect death, so immense and extraordinary as to be worth all her blood, tears, and future hardship, or so she believed.

Once the catastrophe was consummated, they contemplated one another, mute, sweaty, and panting. Marcelino rose awkwardly to his feet. Santa, half sitting up on the green carpet, pulled up handfuls of grass and nervously tore it to pieces between her trembling fingers. Evening descended peacefully on the scene. In the majestic silence of the heartless volcanic wasteland, one could occasionally hear—from far, far away, who knows where—the sorrowful bleating of sheep who were lost or being shorn, and also, the off-key singing of a child, possibly Cosme, mounted on the house belonging to Fabián and Esteban, returning cheerfully from a day spent pasturing the cows.

“We should get going, don't you think?” proposed Marcelino, to put an end to the embarrassing situation.

“Where do you want me to go like this?” replied Santa, unsteadily, alluding to her murdered virginity.

Marcelino could not comprehend such peculiar squeamishness, so he answered her curtly:

“I suppose you should go home, you don't want me to take you to the barracks, right?”

“Take me wherever you want to, I don't care, but I'm not going home.”

“Santa, don't act crazy. Just go on home, and tomorrow, when things settle down, we can decide what to do, okay? Now, come on, let's go!”

And, taking her arm, he pulled her to her feet, put his arm around her, and steered her out of the Pedregal, trying to console her and, especially, calm her down. There was a way to make everything right:

“Don't say a word to anybody, not even to your shadow, and here's my offer, okay? As soon as I can, … soon, I'll marry you, okay? We'll be poor because I don't have a thing, but if it makes you happy … Don't you have anything to say? Where is your affection?”

“Where's my affection, Marcelino? … I love you so much that I'd give you a thousand virginities if I had them … and any way you wanted, one by one to make it last longer, or all at once, so that my body would give you more pleasure than all the other women who could fall in love with you … Just don't abandon me! Oh, Nuestra Señora del Carmen, please, don't abandon me, Marcelino … If you knew my mother and my brothers … they'll kill me if they find out … So swear right now! Swear you won't abandon me! Swear you still love me as much as before …”